Journalism as Model for Civic and Information Literacies

Journalism can serve as a generative disciplinary context for developing civic and information literacies needed to meaningfully participate in an increasingly networked and mediated public sphere. Using interviews with journalists, we developed a cognitive task analysis model, identifying an iterative sequence of production and domain-specific cognitive constructs of journalism expertise. We diagnose common discrepancies between professional practices and typical youth journalism pedagogies, and offer suggestions for teaching participatory politics and civic literacies through journalism.     

记者痛感共情能力初步研究

本研究考察了记者人群与非记者人群对疼痛共情能力的差异,探讨职业训练对人类共情能力的影响。30名记者和30名非记者为本研究被试,分别给予疼痛图片或无疼痛图片后,要求被试对其进行疼痛评定。结果发现两组被试对无疼痛图片的痛感指数没有显著差异,但记者组的痛感指数明显高于非记者组,且疼感指数与记者的从业时间呈现显著的正相关性。这些结果表明记者人群在痛感共情能力上显著升高。进一步调查研究发现相对于非记者人群,记者在与人交往过程中更为在意他人,表明这可能是导致记者共情能力升高的原因之一。本研究运用实验研究的方法首次提供了记者共情能力升高的证据,并对影响因素进行了初步探讨,将有助于丰富本领域以及职业对人类共情能力影响机制的研究。     

In Defence of Entrapment in Journalism (and Beyond)

The use of 'proactive' methods of newsgathering in journalism is very frequently condemned, from within and without the media. I argue that such condemnation is too hasty. In the first half of the paper, I develop a test which distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate uses of proactive methods by law enforcement agencies. This test combines the virtues of the standard objective and subjective tests usually used, while avoiding the defects of both. I argue that when proactive methods pass this test, they are always legitimate; but that in addition they are sometimes mandatory. In the second half, I apply this test to journalism. I show that actual uses of proactive methods by journalists pass the test, and are therefore (at least) permissible. There are other ethical considerations which are relevant to the use of such techniques by journalists, which ought to be taken into account before it is decided to employ such methods, but I show that they are rarely of sufficient weight to render proactive newsgathering impermissible.     

Journalists: a moral law unto themselves?

ABSTRACT Journalists often take themselves as having a moral duty to protect their sources. If the sources in question leak information from government departments, government ministers will consider themselves as having the moral right to demand that the journalists disclose the identity of those sources. This creates conflicts of value between what journalists and ministers consider to be right. It is argued not only that traditional moral theories cannot resolve such moral conflicts, but that they are in a sense a good thing. A world in which the conflicts occur may be considered to be better than one in which they are prevented from occurring, for one can expect to have both effective journalism and effective government only in the former. The most important consequence of this view is that it makes the professional ethics of journalism (and, by implication, those of other professions) into something more than the mere application of universal moral rules to the various situations in which those who work in the profession are liable to find themselves.     

Gender stereotyping in television advertisements: a study of French and Danish television

Two similar, but not identical, content analyses of the portrayals of men and women in French and Danish television advertisements are reported. By partially replicating and extending past investigations conducted in America, Australia, Britain, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, and New Zealand, it was predicted that there would be more gender stereotyping in French television advertisements and less gender stereotyping in Danish television advertisements. In the first study, 165 French television advertisements were analyzed by following established coding categories (A. Furnham & E. Skae, 1997; L. Z. McArthur & B. G. Resko, 1975). Contrary to prediction, the results showed that traditional gender role portrayal on French television was no different from that found in other countries. Separate statistical analyses were carried out for visually versus aurally classified central figures, yet this yielded relatively few significant differences. In the second study, a sample of 151 Danish advertisements was analyzed; results showed that Danish television was generally less gender stereotypic than French television in its portrayal of women. Exactly half (5) of the coding categories showed significant differences. Finally, an international statistical comparison between these two studies and similar research in Australia, Britain, and Italy was carried out. The methodological implications of these results are discussed as well as the theoretical issues arising from other studies of this sort.     

On the Rag on Screen: Menarche in Film and Television

The purpose of this essay is to examine film and television representations of menarche from a critical, feminist perspective. A close analysis of scenes about menarche in 3 films and 4 television programs reveals implicit ideological messages of gender difference and gender stereotypes. Although these scenes appear to be positive and powerful challenges to menstrual communication taboos, they ultimately serve to reinforce media stereotypes of gender difference.     

The link between children's sport participation and self-esteem: Exploring the mediating role of sport self-concept

Background and PurposeSport participation is positively associated with indices of adjustment, such as self-esteem, among adolescent participants. Less is known about the processes through which younger children benefit from their sport participation. The purpose of this investigation was to test whether children's sport self-concept mediated the longitudinal associations between time spent in individual- and team-oriented organized sport activities and later self-esteem.MethodsWe used four waves of data from the Childhood and Beyond Study collected from three cohorts of elementary school-aged children (N = 987), their parents, and their teachers.ResultsFindings indicated that children who spent more time in team sports, but not time in individual sports, reported higher sport self-concept, which, in turn, was associated with higher self-esteem than their peers. Multi-group analyses suggested that these relations did not vary across gender, sport ability, sport importance beliefs, or peer acceptance.ConclusionsStudy results suggested that the relations between time spent in sports and children's sport self-concept depends, in part, on whether the time was spent in team or individual sports. This investigation highlighted the value of examining mediating processes so as to better explicate the association between time in sports and self-esteem.     

Exposure to media and theory-of-mind development in preschoolers

Exposure to different forms of narrative media may influence children's development of theory-of-mind. Because engagement with fictional narratives provides one with information about the social world, and possibly draws upon theory-of-mind processes during comprehension, exposure to storybooks, movies, and television may influence theory-of-mind development. We examined 4–6 year-olds’ inferred exposure to children's literature, television, and film, using an objective measure that controls for socially desirable responding. Theory-of-mind was assessed using a battery of five tasks. Controlling for age, gender, vocabulary, and parental income, inferred exposure to children's storybooks predicted theory-of-mind abilities. Inferred exposure to children's movies also predicted theory-of-mind development, but inferred exposure to children's television did not.     

Talking about ‘Fairness’ in Football and Politics: The Case of Navad

ABSTRACT

We argue that sport in general, and association football in particular, are activities that invite spectators and players alike to talk about them. Using a Wittgensteinian approach, we argued more precisely that football, like any sport, may be understood as a form of life, and as such that it enables speakers to talk about it in quite specific ways, not least in the manner in which normative terms, such as fairness and bias, are used. Football thereby creates a metaphorical space, we suggest, in which there is a freedom to explore and play with language, and in particular normative language, even if that language-use is repressed in the wider political society. Using the example of the Iranian television programme Navad as a case study, we explore the ways in which talk about fairness in the context of football can develop and sustain a competence in the use of political and moral language-use even when that competence is under-threat elsewhere.     

The Perpetuation of Subtle Prejudice: Race and Gender Imagery in 1990s Television Advertising

Scholars have long argued that popular consumer culture is both producer and product of social inequality, but few detailed empirical studies have explored the ways that advertising imagery simultaneously constructs stereotypes of race and gender. This article reports on a content analysis of television commercials (n = 1699) aired on programs with high ratings for specific target audiences from 1992 to 1994. Characters in the television commercials enjoy more prominence and exercise more authority if they are White or men. Logistic regression analyses indicate that images of romantic and domestic fulfillment also differ by race and gender, with women and Whites disproportionately shown in family settings and in cross-sex interactions. In general, 1990s television commercials tend to portray White men as powerful, white women as sex objects, African American men as aggressive, and African American women as inconsequential. The authors suggest that these commercial images contribute to the perpetuation of subtle prejudice against African Americans by exaggerating cultural differences and denying positive emotions. Results are discussed in relation to the segmentation of media markets and possibilities for social change.     

Scholarship on Gender and Sport in Sex Roles and Beyond

In this paper we critically review how research on girls or women and sport has developed over the last 35 years. We use a post-positivist lens to explore the content of the papers published in Sex Roles in the area of women, gender and sport and examine the shifts in how gender and sport have been conceptualized in these accounts. In order to initiate a broader dialogue about the scholarly analysis of gender and sport, we subsequently explore ideas inspired by feminist theorizing that have dominated/guided related research in other outlets over this time period but have received relatively little attention in papers published in Sex Roles. We conclude by briefly making suggestions for further research in this area.     

Examination of Gender-role Portrayals in Television Advertising across Seven Countries

This study examined the roles of cultural (Hofstede??s Masculinity value dimension??i.e., Gender of Nations), country-level (Gender-related Development Index), and execution-level (product type or gender of the typical user) factors in understanding gender-role portrayals in television advertising. Using content analysis methodology, we compared the gender and occupation of the prominent character and the gender of the voice-over across 2,608 television commercials in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, South Korea, Thailand, and the United States. Results of regression analyses revealed that cultural and country factors predicted the gender of the voice-over only whereas product type consistently conformed with the gender of the prominent character. Overall, males were featured in prominent visual and auditory roles, while females were still portrayed in stereotypical ways.     

电视广告中性别角色定型研究述评

文章首先介绍了性别角色定型的相关概念和广告中性别角色定型研究的理论基础,然后从内容分析和受众反应两个角度回顾并总结了有关电视广告中性别角色定型的研究。内容分析的结果表明：虽然经过了20多年的女权运动,电视广告中的性别角色定型并没有减弱;电视广告中的性别角色定型具有国际普遍性。受众反应的结果表明：受众对电视广告中的性别角色定型的反应是一个复杂的过程,会受到多种因素,比如性别、年龄、受教育程度和女性主义意识等的影响     

Gender-linked Differences in the Toys, Television Shows, Computer Games, and Outdoor Activities of 5- to 13-year-old Children

This study was designed to compare how 5- to 13-year-old children's leisure activity preferences differ with age and gender. Responses from 60 boys and 60 girls about their favorite toys, television shows, computer games, and outdoor activities were compared across leisure categories. The results showed that gender was a significant factor. Overall, boys spent more time in these leisure activities than girls did. They spent the most time engaged in sports, watching television, and playing computer games, whereas girls spent the most time watching television. Results from a gender index for all activities indicated that boys' leisure preferences became slightly more masculine with age. For girls, preferences for television shows became more feminine with age, but preferences for toys, computer games, and sports became less feminine. These self-chosen preferences may provide differential opportunities for the development of visual-spatial skills, achievement, initiative, self-regulation, and social skills.     

Sport participation,body satisfaction and depressive symptoms in adolescence: a moderated-mediation analysis of gender differences

This research aimed to analyse the partial mediating role of body satisfaction in the relationship between sport participation and depressive symptoms, as well as to examine the moderating role of gender in these associations. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 1810 adolescents aged 13–18 years old who completed self-report measures regarding sport participation, body satisfaction and depressive symptoms. The results indicated that a higher frequency of sport participation was associated with a lower presence of depressive symptoms, both directly and through greater body satisfaction, although gender differences were found in this partial mediation model. It was detected that sport participation had a greater effect on positive body satisfaction among boys, whereas body dissatisfaction indicated a greater presence of depressive symptoms among girls. The results emphasize the need to implement gender-specific programmes to improve psychological adjustment in adolescents by promoting sport practice and body acceptance.     

A statement of principles for health care journalists

Many journalism organizations have published codes of ethics in recent years. The Association of Newspaper Editors, for example, lists 47 different codes on its website. But an organization of health care journalists felt that none of those codes addressed the unique challenges of covering complex health care topics. The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing public understanding of health care issues. Its mission is to improve the quality, accuracy and visibility of health care reporting, writing and editing. AHCJ has written a statement of principles for its 750 members. In it, AHCJ states some of the unique challenges faced by journalists covering health care, and offers suggestions on how to face those challenges. Bioethicists are invited to comment on the statement, and to help generate continued discussion of the issues addressed therein.     

A Statement of Principles for Health Care Journalists

Many journalism organizations have published codes of ethics in recent years. The Association of Newspaper Editors, for example, lists 47 different codes on its website. But an organization of health care journalists felt that none of those codes addressed the unique challenges of covering complex health care topics. The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to advancing public understanding of health care issues. Its mission is to improve the quality, accuracy and visibility of health care reporting, writing and editing. AHCJ has written a statement of principles for its 750 members. In it, AHCJ states some of the unique challenges faced by journalists covering health care, and offers suggestions on how to face those challenges. Bioethicists are invited to comment on the statement, and to help generate continued discussion of the issues addressed therein.     

ARABIC JOURNALISM AS A VEHICLE FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

Jews were nowhere as open to participation in the wider Arab culture and at home in standard literary Arabic as in Iraq in the twentieth century. There was a strong connection between the Iraqi Jews’ involvement in the canonical Arab culture and their participation in Iraqi press and journalism. Trying to integrate into the local society, Iraqi Jews founded their own Arabic newspapers and served as editors and journalists in many other Iraqi periodicals. However, due to the gradual demise of Arab‐Jewish culture because of the conflict in the Middle East, the involvement of Jews in Arabic press and journalism is coming to an end. The distinguishing feature of the Muslim‐Jewish symbiosis was that the great majority of Jews under Islamic rule adopted Arabic as their language. This symbiosis does not exist in our time because Arabic is gradually disappearing as a mother tongue mastered by Jews.     

Evaluation of a Spanish version of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire: Some personal and situational factors related to the aggression scores of young subjects

The psychometric properties of a Spanish translation of the Buss and Perry aggression questionnaire adapted for pre-adolescents and adolescents have been studied. A maximum-likelihood confirmatory factor analysis corroborates Buss and Perry’s four-factor structure. The internal consistency of each factor and of the total score has proved to be satisfactory. The four factors are more closely interrelated in pre-adolescents than in adolescents.A second aim of this work has been to further our understanding of the possible relationship between aggression scores and certain outside-school activities of the subjects studied. Two thousand two hundred and eight students filled in the questionnaire together with a self-report concerning their habits. The results show that the aggression scores rise concomitantly with time spent watching television and playing video games and decrease the greater the time devoted to extra-curricular reading or moderate amounts of homework. Statistically significant differences relating to age and gender were also found.     

Public Reason, Objectivity, and Journalism in Liberal Democratic Societies

How should we understand the familiar demand that journalists ‘be objective’? One possibility is that journalists are under an obligation to report only the facts of the matter. However, facts need to be interpreted, selected, and communicated. How can this be done objectively? This paper aims to explain the concept of journalistic objectivity in methodological terms. Specifically, I will argue that the ideal of journalistic objectivity should be recast as a commitment to John Rawls’s conception of public reason. Journalism plays a vital role in the operation of all modern liberal democracies, functioning as the public watchdog, the fourth estate, or the conduit through which vital information flows to the citizenry. Journalism is, therefore, an institution that is best understood as part of the basic structure of society. In Political Liberalism, Rawls explicitly excludes media of any kind from the demands of public reason because he doesn’t think that they play a political role that is important enough to bring them under the official auspices of public reason. I will argue that overlooking the political significance of journalism is a mistake, but one that can be corrected while keeping within the spirit and most important elements of his theory. This revision will widen the scope for what counts as journalism beyond traditional outlets and forms of media but will impose the demands of public reason on anyone who intends to participate in the institution.