Democratic Journalism - Essay Example

? Is the Future of Democratic Journalism Better than the Past? By (Module and number) Is the Future of Democratic Journalism Better than the Past? Media have played some crucial roles in disseminating information and updates to people around the world. History has shown its changes starting off from word-of-mouth method of communication to the present sophisticated communication with the use of technology. The main purpose of media has not changed though some minor changes in the mode of delivery have been observed throughout the years. Media have been used in journalism as the modes of communication in sending the founded information to the public. It has been known that journalism focuses on the truth that lies in the current issues and happenings in the society and surroundings. Various subjects have been incorporated to journalism from businesses to governmental activities and reactions of the society at large (Pavlik 2001, p. 83). It also contains entertainment and show business as artists, actors and directors are the topics of the rendered reports. Journalism may be performed by making documentaries, doing some interviews and capturing photos of the footage. In the current state of the world, people heavily rely on the news media as the professional body to analyze and manage the information flow regarding public events and happenings (Pavlik 2001, p. 83). The way media and journalism are used undergoes changes as technology progresses swiftly. People are migrating to the newer form of journalism which is done through the power of the Internet. The digital age has greatly changed journalism as wired networks allow people to exchange information anytime and anywhere as geographical boundaries are not obstacles anymore. Gadgets are widely-used nowadays like tablet PCs, laptops, desktops, smart phones and other products that are connected to the Internet through cables or wireless capabilities (p. 213). Print media have been in the dilemma of becoming less popular and may lead to extinction as the audience prefers digital news over the print media like newspapers (Paterson 2008, p. 115). Some journalists may look at the change and shift of journalism and media as a negative phenomenon as the traditional ways may be gone in a matter of years. In contrary, other journalists think that the Internet as the emerging media for journalism has a bright potential that is waiting to be used to the full extent and for the development of journalism as a practice. News organizations are slowly embracing the advent of the new media as digital technology is incorporated now into the delivery of news and public affairs though the traditional media may not be able to cope up. Various techniques are then employed to ensure the quality and improve the way news is generated based on the gathered information. Some even make use of maestro concept which is a brainstorming method of getting the job done. A group of journalists and media men compose the brainstorming session in constructing the news stories and projected images for the news scoop. It had been formulated by Professor Leland Ryan, a journalism educator who had assisted various reporters, artists and media men into how they can create good news stories. In performing the brainstorming session, a leader is assigned as the maestro among the members of the team who will preside with the format of the story planning. The group then will think about the questions that the audience may ask once they have perceived the news and jot them down. Afterwards the concept would be formulated based on the listed questions by answering them. Next, the team will visualize the scenario and how they can put the news story on a page. Lastly, the group will think of the obstacles that may prevent them from posting a good news story. They may need to consider the appropriate images and fonts for the stories and some logos or additional graphics that may enhance the delivery of the news. The group may even think of possible lay-outs for their news story to be published (Gibbs and Warhover 2002, p. 225). Modern journalism then took form when a collision between two philosophies occurred in the Roaring Twenties when Walter Lippmann and John Dewey argued about the importance of media and journalism to democracy (Merritt and McCombs 2004, p. 23). During that time, Lippmann considered journalism as the middleman between lawmakers and the citizens. The communication in that concept of journalism is one way only wherein the journalists get the scoop of the information from the elites and make some neutralization upon the information before passing it to the ordinary people. He pointed out that ordinary citizens have no proper background and maturity to handle the situations directly, so a sort of censorship and filtering must be done by the news groups before announcing the news to the public (p. 24). Lippmann underestimated the understanding capability of the public regarding complex issues that are prevalent in the society. The role of journalism then comes into play as the journalists are the ones authorized to handle to sensitivity of the issues. They digest the information into easy-to-understand and remove the complexities of the issues presented. In that way, the educated people such as the law makers, scientists and other professionals are on-top of the power structure while the masses remain at the bottom. Power is given to elites only according to the perspective of Lippmann, but journalists are present to continuously watch the activities of the elites as the public has the final verdict whether to accept or reject the policies. In that same manner, the ordinary people remain at the bottom as they serve as the receivers of the information coming from the top (Forde 2008, p. 15). Lippmann was considered to be an elitist in his perspective though he considered journalism as the guard and observer in terms of informing the public to control the overflowing power of the elites that may adversely affect the life of the general public. For him, any type of political system has its own flaws that journalism must do its faithful duty to observe and disseminate the issues once overpowering may occur (p. 77). Fairness and absence of biases must be practiced at all times according to Lipmann. He even placed on his works such as Public Opinion and Liberty and the News regarding the importance of history and science in screening the information as to know whether the information is purely opinionated or has truth in it backed up by history and science (p. 285). Also he claimed that a redefinition of freedom may be entailed but through the management of an intelligent system that is not handled by the government. It is then the role of the journalists and media men to gather factual information, polish them and broadcast them to the public with a more general point-of-view. Lippmann did not believe that the leading newspaper publishers have the right to change the news stories and the constant observance of the truth should be done in the scientific perspective. He became a person against the principles of the republican government as those people share their basic principles but without any scientific proofs. He was also against collectivism principle of the opposite of the Republicans known as the Progressives. The pattern or structure of basis was removed in the principle set forth by the Progressives and people might forget the foundations of politics in USA made by their founders (Steel 2008, p. 317). John Dewey who was a philosopher had an opposite perspective. He believed that the public is capable of decision-making and understanding the issues in the society. He suggested that public forums are used to verify the truthfulness of the issues and before setting the final decisions, discussions are done among the attendees (Forde 2008, p. 15). Once the discussion comes to an end, ideas would come out as solutions to the problems. The process is like a public brainstorming. He emphasized the role of journalists as critics and evaluators to the policies and laws being passed and not just merely sharers of the issues and decisions made by the elites to the public (p. 77). As time passed by, the ideas of Dewey materialized and developed into the so-called community journalism. The journalism shifted to the locality or the immediate vicinity or the community where the professionals share the news even on the minute details of the neighborhood. The said form of journalism is known as community journalism wherein the local journalists are not very much concerned with the national and world events (Winfield 2008, p. 53). Wide topics have been bestowed upon community journalism, but the main concern focuses on the immediate and long-term effects on their local readers. They are usually published in the locality once a week and cover even the smallest of news like school events, community programs, miscellaneous crimes and the local life. The presence of such newspapers in the locality strengthens the bond within the communities that the leading newspapers are not able to penetrate (Fedak 2007, p. 7). Nowadays the small community newspapers are part of the leading publishers but there are still some community papers that run on very small-scale. Despite of the changes in ownership, the community newspapers still keep their integrity and ways as professional journalists do their jobs that got their training and education from university journalism degree programs. They cannot be compared to amateur journalists who do the profession for hobby as the community journalists put in their efforts and skills in the process (Marshall et al 2004, p. 264). Amateur journalists usually participate in the so-called citizen journalism wherein formal journalism training program is not required. Since community journalism is a profession, conferences are held to improve the performance of the career as a whole. Participants made the list of qualities that community journalists must possess. They also made criteria for the community journalism as a whole (Lauterer 2006, p. 16). It should be personal and should showcase the culture and happenings in the community it serves. The community becomes the focus of the trends in journalism. The shift enables journalists to be closer to the ordinary people and elites alike regarding the production of information. Despite of the exhibition of equality and absence of discrimination, John Dewey still suggested that expertise is also important. He stressed out that the ideas and information generated by many people are better than the knowledge set forth by an individual which means participation is needed in journalism. Experts are still part of the concept of journalism that Dewey suggested but hierarchy is not tolerated (Merritt and McCombs 2004, p. 75). For him, democracy is important as everyone has the right to free speech and conducts some conversations among men from different walks of life. The conceptual framework of the journalism based on the perspective of Lippmann may favor the experts like the people in the government, but the free speech and participatory perspective of journalism that Dewey suggested fits many journalists in the roles they play and in setting forth journalism as a career. In particular, people may react negatively to the commentaries of the journalists but they still expect the journalists to continuously watch the experts and inform the public consistently. From the community journalism arise the newer form of the profession known as democratic journalism. The power of the internet is tapped in the process to disseminate news worldwide. Geographical boundaries have been overcome as social networking platforms become popular and sites like Newsvine and Digg become the new players in the journalism field (Papacharissi 2009, p. 141). Democratic journalism promotes the general participation of the public throughout the world. They share their opinions and perspectives regarding the news and issues in the society that affect all people everyday. The practice diverges from the conventional journalism wherein the editor is responsible for deciding whether a news scoop is to be published or not (Ward 2011, p. 112). It shows how the conventional approach is in a closed system while the democratic journalism is the sharing of news through public participation which entails an open system. Some experts point out that democratic journalism empowers the ordinary people as they have the rights to share their opinions in public and give significant impacts on the molding of the laws. They also participate in protecting the rights of the individuals from the manipulations of the elites while strengthening the unity and bonds of the people in the society (Papacharissi 2009, p. 21). Democratic journalism then goes beyond the exaggerations, control and manipulations by the leaders like the leading publishers and media groups. Democratic journalism then may have been rooted from citizen journalism which has been described in a preceding paragraph. It deals with the ordinary people acting as journalists or watchdogs to the issues and happenings in the society. Formal education on journalism is not required in citizen journalism. The goal in that type of practice is to create contents based on the knowledge and participation of the citizens as they collect, edit, study and spread the news they gathered (Fedak 2007, p. 15). Democratic journalism then is not only affected by citizen journalism but also by civic journalism and collaborative journalism. Civic journalism then is the attempt to include the once audience in politics and society converted to participants in journalism and news building. On the other hand, collaborative journalism is composed of various groups and individuals making one news entry. Information used in the news stories come from research added upon by readers making the story to be in progress. It is very common to use the existing news in the media to be used in collaborative journalism (Fedak 2007, p. 92). It may look like a collage as the range is broad, perspectives are multiple and having various authors. Collaborative journalism is then practiced by both professionals and non-professional as they help one another through sharing of ideas. Blog posts made by non-professionals may be used to support the main news stories. It has the potential to provide freedom for people to express themselves while contributing to the development of journalism. Anybody may help in building the news through wikis or his own blogs (Fedak 2007, p. 23). For it to be successful, the collaborators should contribute with the sense of professionalism or care for the information. That type of journalism makes it like a conversation or forum as the contents are generally about a two-way communication. Since technology rapidly changes, journalism also changes with it as democratic journalism keeps on changing its shape through the evolution of social media sites on the web. In addition, cellular phones and other communication gadgets are present where people can have access to the news anytime and anywhere. It becomes even faster than conventional media. Despite of its great speed and ease of access, its integrity is in question as the use of the new platforms is unregulated (Papacharissi 2009, p. 29). It may entail biases, lies and dangers in quality. The claims may have been true as it is possible to be subjective and some may even say it is impossible to be objective. Complaints come regarding the coldness of the traditional journalists as they try to be fair and neutral. They are sometimes accused of being unemotional and detached from the events (Marshall et al 2004, p. 264). Those people have not considered that being impartial in being journalists do not entail them to be detached and objectivity is based on emotions. Understanding the news may require a certain level of feelings especially for the objective truth and impartiality. There should be love in seeking for the truth for the public to make democratic journalism live up on its name. Both neutrality and objectivity are biases in their own ways though biases are not of equal levels. Neutrality may entail a positive bias which goes against truth distortions. It means that journalism should cater the truth first before any judgments to be done. It is about suspending the personal biases and beliefs at the moment to follow the trail of the truth through the facts being revealed (The emotions of democratic journalism 2012). Probably being objective does not mean that the journalists must not care regarding the issues and remain neutral all the time. The traditional culture must have undermined the role of emotions in the society though in fact emotions must be part of democracy. The prevalent viewpoints are either reliance on emotions for the truth or plainly use reasoning for it to work. John Dewey emphasized that both extremes must be avoided and the balance must be pursued. Emotions and logic must be integrated in perspectives. People may be able to understand and democratic journalism will have its further development through educated emotions (Dzur 2008, p. 121). Through proper use of both faculties, learning will go on the next level and development would follow for democratic journalism. The suggestion may help democratic journalism, but the use of emotions must be directed upon verifications and truth-seeking. Emotions must be focused on the evidences and not plainly subjective opinions. It may be helped through emotions education to guide the journalism in progress through the worldwide web (Papacharissi 209, p. 93). Democratic journalism may also improve as other wikis like Wikipedia has its changes through criteria for professionally-written entries. If Digg and other social media sites will have criteria like what Wikipedia has done, probably democratic journalism may become more widely accepted. Bibliography Dzur, Albert. (2008) Democratic professionalism. USA, Pennsylvania University. Fedack, Heidi. (2007) Connecting virtual communities and geographic communities: toward a new path of journalism in Bluffton, S.C. USA, Proquest. Forde, Kathy. (2008) Literary journalism on trial: Masson V. New Yorker and the first amendment. USA, University of Massachusetts Press. Gibbs, Cheryl and Tom Warhover. (2002) Getting the whole story: reporting and writing the news. USA, Guilford Press. Lauterer, Jock. (2006) Community journalism: relentlessly local. USA, University of North Carolina Press. Marshall, Stewart, Wallace Taylor and Xing Yu. (2004) Using community informatics to transform regions. USA, Ideal Group. Merritt, Davis and Maxwell McCombs. (2004) The two W's of journalism: the why and what of public affairs reporting. USA, Lawrence-Erlbaum Associates. Papacharissi, Zizi. (2009) Journalism and citizenship: new agendas in communication. USA, Routledge. Paterson, Chris. (2008) Making online news: the ethnography of new media production. USA, Peter Lang. Pavlik, John. (2001) Journalism and new media. USA, Columbia University Press. Steel, Ronald. (2008) Walter Lippmann and the American century. USA, Transaction Publishers. Ward, Stephen. (2011) Ethics and the media: an introduction. USA, Cambridge University Press. Ward, Stephen. (2012) The emotions of democratic journalism [Internet], Media Morals. Available from < http://ethics.journalism.wisc.edu/2012/04/10/the-emotions-of-democratic-journalism/> [Accessed 7 May 2012]. Winfield, Betty. (2008) Journalism, 1908: birth of a profession. USA, University of Missouri Press. Read More