Abstract
Neoliberalism as a set of economic principles guiding industrial restructuration has been observed across the world since 1980s, during which the structural transformations of media industry and market-driven journalism emerged simultaneously. Following previous researcher (Harvey 2007), there are three dimensions of neoliberalism: as a set of economic principles, as a set of political policies, as a set of mindsets or values, here we examine the value dimension of neoliberalism. Although the changes in media system, including the increasing skeptic orientation toward dominant institutions and conformation towards the audience, has been seen widely, so far there is no empirical research proving the direct causal relationship between the rising of neoliberalism and these concurrent changes in news content. The mechanism between the two is so complex, in which both the professional norms and the organizational rules in media institutions play a crucial role in mediating the impact of neoliberalism on news values, journalistic practices as well news contents. Through a representative survey among 400 journalists in Apple Daily Hong Kong and Apple Daily Tai Wan, two leading popular newspaper affiliated with Next Media Group in two comparable social contexts in Asia, this paper explored the impact of neoliberalism on news values, journalistic practices as well news contents. It should be pointed out that here neoliberalism is conceptualized as a set of mindsets and values including market-orientation, individualism as well as populism, based on previous researches (Chomsky 1999; McChesney 2001; Harvey 2007; Hallin 2008; Hesmondhalgh 2008). Further, this paper proposed a new hierarchical model for analysis of news production, in which four levels of variables are developed. On the first level is the all-pervasive global current of neoliberalism. On the second level a set of competing and interactive variables (professional norms vs. organizational constraints) are posed to explain the mediating role of media in news production. Two distinct indicators of professionalism, news values such as objectivity and occupational autonomy, are included as the indicators of professionalism; while two other indicators are also developed to measure the degree of organizational constraints: formal organizational rules and informal newsroom socialization. On the third level is the journalistic practice, especially the routine practice of news work including the structuration of journalist-source net. Finally, the fourth level is the news content, in this paper it refers to the bias in political news content.
| Original language | English |
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| Publication status | Published - 17 Jul 2012 |
| Event | International Association for Media and Communication Research Conference (IAMCR 2012) - North-South Conversations: South-North Conversations - Durban, South Africa Duration: 15 Jul 2012 → 20 Jul 2012 https://iamcr.org/congress/durban-2012 (Conference website) https://iamcr.org/sites/default/files/Durban2102-programme.pdf (Conference program) https://iamcr.org/sites/default/files/IAMCR_2012_Abstracts.pdf (Conference paper's abstract) |
Conference
| Conference | International Association for Media and Communication Research Conference (IAMCR 2012) - North-South Conversations |
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| Country/Territory | South Africa |
| City | Durban |
| Period | 15/07/12 → 20/07/12 |
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