Journalism in the Service of Communication

core commitments and relationship w your boo

communication scholars and your user friendly acquaintance

Summary
centrality of journalism to communication is embedded in the origin narratives by w/c the field came to be

journ is center in communication

when comm was starting as a field, journ was already there

contains common goals

an alliance bet the study of journ and comm was for the most part a given

comms only take what they need from journ, they throw away the rest

ex: political comms (they only take the part of journ that communicates with the voters)

should include history, sociology, etc.

journ shrunk in importance and centrality; disappeared altogether from the discipline

journ was marginalized and knowledge deemed less useful to the maturation of some fields was set aside

journ’s centrality to comm should be recognized again

journ attributes make it rich; reawakening our collective memory

When journalism was the center

alliance between the study of journ and comm provided a critical developmental foothold for communication
studies

journ was instrumental in flourishing developmental studies

alliance was made possible by similarities

modernity; ideals related to the truth, reason, freedom of information, democracy, individualism, etc.)

asset of journ: you talk about new things (news); desires to seek the truth; reason (don’t accept anything
unless its verified); freedom of info; journ still survives w/o democracy; indiv (letting people decide)

journalism could offer comms a place in the real world, a reminder of why its scholarship mattered

media as a useful vehicle for modernity’s dissemination

when you do thesis, you should contribute to the academe and the field

scholarly value

your thesis is your mark in your college journey

journalism lurked somewhere nearby (eg: humanities, language, history, social sciences)

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 research about journalism took hold

language: (content analysis) how did online news portals cover Marcos during the elections

history: context is king

social sciences: you cover economics, politics, etc.

you cannot divorce comm subfields to journalism

“enduring traits” of journalism

journalism had a value that forecast some of communication’s most enduring traits as its own field, a real-world
relevance, setting that engaged with other fields

a real world relevance; setting that repeatedly and systematically engaged with other
environments (multidisciplinary); set of pattern and somewhat predictable routines for
analysis; phenomenon that combined language and people, practices values and mindsets
related to the public

Journ as a center (summary)

journ in every place that comms research took hold

ascent in comm study relied on journalism (war propaganda)

journ as key players in journ education (Whitman, Sarnoff, Park)

administrative model of inquiry (govt agencies/institutions)

laboratory for theory development (Marx, Schaffle, Weber, UK)

springboard of theory in communication

journ as a rich and hospitable venue from which to launch comm research (China, South Korea)

participative and alternative communication models (South America)

Marginalization of journalism
journ shrunk in importance and centrality

“user friendly”

they took important aspects of journ for the gain of their study

journalism was misrepresented (short-sighted view)

evident in scholarship on politics, culture and technology

journ in politics as a public service

in culture —

in tech — faster way of relaying messages

selective

Journalism in the Service of Communication 2

 selective process; useful was pushed aside that w/c are perceived to be less useful

real importance was thrown away

each subfield: separate interpretative community of memory

ex: Toni talks w/ Marcos Jr. on Martial law (how come martial law was bad in textbooks? — because history is
written by victors)

Marcos claim: victors are selective (exaggerated abuses)

interpretative community pulled from the past those aspects that fit their present day interest (what’s not
useful gets thrown away)

ex: Main in Malacanang (film only took aspects or narratives what fit to them)

each subfield developed a highly strategic and internally useful but limited accounting of what mattered
about journalism

again, short sighted

in effect, journalism gets misrepresented

(how journ was marginalized in)

POLITICS
assumption: politics and journ is interdependent; better serve its public and the policy

but it does not define the totality of journalism (there’s lifestyle, sports)

separate interpretative community of memory

minimizes aspects of journalism that do not fit that assumption

emphasized voter empowerment, boosted info abt candidates, allowing the ppl coming up with informed
political decisions

other aspects outside of politics were not attributed (malawak din ang political comm)

it focused too much on the ideal

much of the focus on the multiple journalism evident on the grounds has been lost

problem on pol com: focuses on the theoretical and ideal

ideal does not always meet the real

its good but it will not always fit assumptions

“kung ano na lang lagi ang hinahangad” — hinahanap mo yung gusto mo pero hindi mo na aapreciate
yung nasa paligid mo

do not get tied in the paradigm that doesn’t exist

TECHNOLOGY
journ was outsourced generalized and made incidental

Journalism in the Service of Communication 3

 faster, more mobile, easier access

reduced journ into a mere medium for transmitting messages

tech in journ focuses on the mechanisms

social relations and systems of power are not remembered; historical context; craft dimensions of journalism

no care about the past; break the news, that’s what’s important

objectivity and verification was sidelined

bias toward journ modes that jump on the bandwagon (faster is better)

bias for the fast and modern marginalizes other forms of journalism (does that mean Buzzfeed is better than
PCIJ?)

“listicles” — you get engagement but you don’t get awards there (long form investigative pieces rule)

laos ang slow

predictions about the demise of journ; this seems not only premature but decidedly western

different states of tech development

bias against print and mainstream media

“journ is dead” a western invention — it’s premature (we don’t know yet)

food for thought: if print is dead, mainstream media is dead why are there new broadsheets? — Global daily
mirror; how come there are new media outlets and Villar invested in mainstream media?

CULTURE
original impulses; nowhere to be found today in a shape that recalls that early certainty

before: they study culture of newsrooms, now: they study reality shows, Kardashian level, fear factor, etc.
(does not match because culture is subjective in nature)

when you talk about creativity, why do you need to talk about norms?

“bad boy” on the house

focuses in the side of journ left unaddressed elsewhere

for cultural comm, looking at outrageous things (eg Mark Logan, Jeanne Moos)

broader embrace relatively and subjectivity; ambivalence; facts, truth reality

“journalism is too serious, I’ll watch the outrageous”

Summary
journ is surviving but in ways that match contemporary interests of the subfield

we are suffering “disciplinary nearsightedness”

politics: what we have < what we hope for

tech: old and slow < new and fast

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 culture: mainstream, mundane < odd and outrageous

Geographic nearsightedness
only part of the environments from which scholars tackle communication

nagkakanya kanya ang scholars

there’s a refusal of some scholars to go beyond their boundaries

Either/or stance

“nagpapataasan sila ng ihi” — sila sila lang din nagkakaintindihan

among those trying to address who succeeds in shaping the field’s original narrative moving forwards
(intellectual imperialism, regional myopia)

If Western media says so, we follow

we idolize CNN but it’s a loosing network (here in the Ph we take CNN with prestige)

west is not the moral compass

Uneven exchange of academic knowledge/gravitation towards western driven universals

“Orientalism” by Edward Said

shows how the west views us (people in the east)

colonial view is still there

Twain: It your only tool is a hammer, then all ur problems will be nails

“kakampi mo si __, hindi na kita bati”

Variances within opposing sides

acknowledge variances (ex: not all feminists hate men, not all abortionists hate conservatives, etc.)

no black vs white (gray areas)

we do not chop chop to fit our interests

How necessarily divergent and internally contradictory the ground of communication must continue to be

we eat conflicting views for breakfast, lunch and dinner

On journalism’s role in communication

divergent and open ended

sensitive to different and often contradictory course, values, and contingencies and relative and particularistic

journ is diverse (politics, sports, etc.)

we are ready to listen to different views

compatible and healthy to the field of comms

we look at the nuances

Comms at core — multiple journalisms

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 rethink existing theories from anew

updating notions that comms originally place

we can use journ to update our knowledge and attitudes

Restoring journ centrality

useful ground for thinking about comms

comms as a discipline matters

collective memory from anew

multiple attributes; retweaking collective memory

limited value of attachment

not only to ideas but to the ground

when you do your thesis, you need to acknowledge fields to what it is but still follow certain
scopes and limitations

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