Objectivity, impartiality and balance in socila media journalism practice in Pakistan: A content analysis

• Název práce v češtině: Objektivita, nestrannost a rovnováha v žurnalistické praxi na sociálních médií v Pákistánu: obsahová analýza
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Objectivity, impartiality and balance in socila media journalism practice in Pakistan: A content analysis
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2021/2022
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Katedra žurnalistiky (23-KZ)
• Vedoucí / školitel: Mgr. Jan Miessler
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 04.02.2022
• Datum zadání: 04.02.2022
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 04.02.2022

Seznam odborné literatury

Abid, M., Shah, Z., 2011. Representations of Corruption in the English Print Media in Pakistan. Pakistan Vision 13, 37.
Ali, S., 2010. Portrayal of Minorities in Elite English Press of Pakistan: A Study of Daily Dawn and the Nation. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences (PJSS) 30.
Ashraf, S. A. B. N. (2014). Journalism ethics: Evidence from media industry of Pakistan. Global Media Journal: Pakistan Edition, 7(2), 25-36.
Bell, M. (1998). The truth is our currency. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 3(1), 102-109.
Benson, R. (2008). "Normative theories of journalism." The Blackwell international encyclopedia of communication. 2591-2597.
Christians, C. G., Glasser, T., McQuail, D., Nordenstreng, K., & White, R. A. (2010). Normative theories of the media: Journalism in democratic societies. University of Illinois Press.
Creswell, J. W. (1994). Research design: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA:SAGE Publications.
Esser, F., & Umbricht, A. (2013). Competing models of journalism? Political affairs coverage in US, British, German, Swiss, French and Italian newspapers. Journalism, 14(8), 989-1007.
Galtung, J., & Ruge, M. H. (1965). The structure of foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of peace research, 2(1), 64-90.
Hedman, U., & Djerf-Pierre, M. (2013). The social journalist: Embracing the social media life or creating a new digital divide?. Digital journalism, 1(3), 368-385.
Hermida, A., & Mellado, C. (2020). Dimensions of social media logics: Mapping forms of journalistic norms and practices on Twitter and Instagram. Digital Journalism, 8(7), 864-884.
Hernández-Fuentes, A., & Monnier, A. (2020). Twitter as a Source of Information? Practices of Journalists Working for the French National Press. Journalism Practice, 1-18.
Lawrence, R. G., Molyneux, L., Coddington, M., & Holton, A. (2014). Tweeting Conventions: Political journalists' use of Twitter to cover the 2012 presidential campaign. Journalism Studies, 15(6), 789-806.
McGoldrick, A., & Lynch, J. (2006, May). Peace journalism. Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum.
Siddiqui, N. (October 26, 2021). PM Imran appoints Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum as new DG ISI. The Dawn. https://www.dawn.com/news/1653379
Tsatsou, P., & Armstrong, C. D. (2014). Responsibility to report: The politics of British press reporting of the Darfur humanitarian crisis. Global Media and Communication, 10(2), 193-219.
Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2013). Subjectivity and story-telling in journalism: Examining expressions of affect, judgement and appreciation in Pulitzer Prize-winning stories. Journalism Studies, 14(3), 305-320.
Ward, S. (1999). Pragmatic news objectivity: Objectivity with a human face. Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Ward, S. (2011). Multidimensional objectivity for global journalism. The Handbook of Global Communication and Media Ethics, 1, 215-233.
Wihbey, J., Joseph, K., & Lazer, D. (2019). The social silos of journalism? Twitter, news media and partisan segregation. New Media & Society, 21(4), 815-835.
Zelizer, B. (2004). Taking journalism seriously: News and the academy. Sage Publications.

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

Defining journalism and media practice is not consensual (Zelizer, 2004). There are normative theories to explain journalist’s practice focusing on specific ideals, i.e., norms, ethical concerns, news values, accountability (Christians et al., 2010). To be precise, the normative model of journalism primarily refers to the ideal role of media and journalism, in other words, how a press should act (Benson, 2008). In recent times, some studies argue that the normative model of journalism has been put to the test with the use of social media (Hedman and Djerf-Pierre, 2013; Wihbey et al., 2019; Hermida and Mellado 2020; Hernández-Fuentes and Monnier, 2020). Several scholars have studied the relationship between social media and the normative model of journalism over a decade (Lawrence et al., 2014; Hermida and Mellado, 2020). Some have examined the impact of growing personal expression by journalists online on journalistic objectivity and impartiality norms (Wihbey et al., 2019). Some scholars have considered the normative model as an ideal way to practice journalism (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2013). However, many scholars contested that these norms were created in the western newsroom setting. They have been exported to non-western settings via training, exchange programs, education, and professional collaboration.

Having described the current state of research on the normative model of journalism, we move on to discuss the works on the Pakistan context as it is the field of study. Compared to the considerable body of work on traditional media in Pakistan (Abid and Shah, 2011; Ali, 2012), there are fewer works on new media in the context of Pakistan. Some of these works have analyzed media ethics (Arshad and Ashraf, 2014; Abid, 2011) and news framing (Ali, 2012), while we have not found any work that directly addresses the question of objectivity, impartiality, and balance in social media-based journalism.

Normative theories of journalism will be the theoretical framework of this proposed study. Objectivity, impartiality, and balance are three principal blocks that constitute the fundamentals of normative theories of journalism (Ward, 1999). Though the application of these principal blocks has been challenged and debated, these are the most prevalent philosophy in the journalism profession to date. Moreover, these three concepts are separate, but they often are used interchangeably (Zelizer, 2004). Together they constitute the normative model of journalism (Ward, 1999). Moreover, research shows that concepts such as impartiality and balance are discussed under the umbrella term of objectivity (Zelizer, 2004).

Objectivity in journalism refers to the practice of reporting an event in a manner that is accurate and fair while free from subjectivity (Ward, 1999). Impartiality stands for a journalist’s ability to view conflicting ideas, interests, and personalities objectively (Wahl-Jorgensen et al., 2017). Balance is straightforward, and it refers to the act of ensuring all sides of a story (Ward, 2011). Though there are no universal definitions of these concepts (Benson, 2008), scholars (Ward, 1999) frequently used these terms in their discussion of normative theories of journalism.

Though scholars studied the normative model focusing on the norms of objectivity, impartiality and balance but work on social media, journalist’s adherence to the normative model is limited. Most of the time, studies focused on traditional media practices (Tsatsou and Armstrong, 2014). However, some scholars are critical of the normative model of journalism based on objectivity as they argue that objectivity favors war in war situations (McGoldrick, 2006). Therefore, some scholars worked on the idea of “journalism of attachment” (Bell, 1998) and peace journalism (Galtung and Ruge, 1965). Supporters of these views argue that objectivity is not desirable by giving examples of conflict situations such as the Bosnian civil war (Bell, 1998).

Qualitative research is a holistic approach that signifies discovery. It also implicates an unfolding model that arises in a natural setting and enables the researcher to form a detail-oriented analysis (Creswell, 1994). As this study integrates a purposive use of collecting, describing, and interpreting collected data, the approach of this study is downright qualitative. Therefore, this research will be a standard qualitative content analysis that will help in having an in-depth understanding of the patterns and trends of social media-based journalism practice in Pakistan regarding the normative model of journalism, i.e., objectivity, impartiality and balance. Content analysis will be conducted on a sample of videos posted on the Facebook page of social media journalists. Following the purposive sampling (PS) technique, two pro-government, two anti-government and two neutral journalists will be chosen for this study. This research will select one video from each of these journalists following the three chosen periods. Altogether the final sample will have eighteen videos (6x3). This way of sampling will allow distinguishing journalists of different political opinion and their adherence to objectivity, impartiality, and balance. It will also allow identifying the similarity and differences of their coverage. On the other hand, the video length will be a minimum of three minutes and a maximum of 10 minutes.

The investigation unit will be the video content posted by selected journalists on their Facebook page. Three different periods, i.e., time period A, B, and C, will be selected to ensure sufficient data for the analysis. Time period A is October 6, 2021, to October 26, 2021. During these 20 days, a civil-military rift over the appointment of the Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence (DG ISI), Pakistan’s main intelligence service, was the main focus of news coverage. The start date has been chosen as the military announced the appointment of DG ISI on October 6, 2021, though as per the country’s law, it is the Prime Minister who should appoint and announce the chief’s name. The event took a dramatic situation as Prime Minister Imran Khan refused to accept this appointment and delayed the appointment. On October 26, 2021, the matter was resolved after PM appointed the DG ISI. Therefore, the end date has been chosen (for details, read Siddiqui, 2021).

The time period B is April 13, 2021, to April 29, 2021. During this time, the main opposition parties in Pakistan, i.e., Pakistan Muslim League (N), Pakistan Peoples’ Party and Jamiat Ulmai-e-Islam, went against each other, leaving their political agreement to collaborate under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (an alliance of opposition parties against the government). On April 29, 2021, one of the leading opposition parties, PPP, quit the alliance. The time period C is December 1, 2021, to December 31, 2021. In contrast to time periods A and B, time period C has been chosen not because of any critical event but to collect video samples focusing on general issues. Time period A, B and C will give us the most recent data while this study will be able to study objectivity, impartiality, and balance in three cases of three time periods.

Selected video content will be analyzed by applying the inductive coding process. All the videos will first be transcribed in text form. Later these texts will be coded using open coding, and then axial codes will be formed.

These axial codes will be the foundation to create the themes that will assist in writing an in-depth thematic analysis under the light and linkage of theory and literature. The researcher aims to finish the process of coding visual content by the mid of April, so that there is sufficient time for writing an elaborate thematic analysis and a well-structured discussion to follow.