This book provides novel insights into the perspectives of journalists in Sierra Leone and on their work by examining their perceived journalistic values and the influences that shape them. It treats journalism as an occupational identity and as a community that works on the foundation of the sub-Saharan African philosophies that exalts communal values in every sphere of life. When journalists speak about their social function in society and values, they are sharing both their individual knowledge and experiences on their work. Therefore, journalistic values are never isolated ideologies, but exist within the contexts in which they practice. In this book, Sarah Bomkapre Koroma examines the perceptions of journalists on the societal influences that impact their work, ranging from individual, procedural, organizational, political, economic, and many more. Questions explored include: What journalism cultures exist in Sierra Leone? What effects do societal factors have on these journalistic cultures? How do journalists in Sierra Leone describe their roles? What epistemological underpinnings do they consider during practice? What ethical considerations do the journalists share?

How do journalists around the world view their roles and responsibilities in society? Based on a landmark study that has collected data from more than 27,500 journalists in 67 countries, Worlds of Journalism offers a groundbreaking analysis of the different ways journalists perceive their duties, their relationship to society and government, and the nature and meaning of their work. Challenging assumptions of a universal definition or concept of journalism, the book maps a world populated by a rich diversity of journalistic cultures. Organized around a series of key questions on topics such as editorial autonomy, journalistic ethics, trust in social institutions, and changes in the profession, it details how the practice of journalism differs across the world in a range of political, social, and economic contexts. The book covers how journalism as an institution is created and re-created by journalists and how they experience their profession in very different ways, even as they retain a commitment to some basic, widely shared professional norms and practices. It concludes with a global classification of journalistic cultures that reflects the breadth of worldviews and orientations found in disparate countries and regions. Worlds of Journalism offers an ambitious, comparative global understanding of the state of journalism in a time when it is confronting a series of economic and political threats.

This book offers an analysis of journalists’ professional views against a variety of political, economic, social, cultural, and linguistic contexts. Based on data gathered for the Worlds of Journalism Study, which conducted surveys with more than 27,000 journalists in 67 countries, the authors explore aspects such as linguistic and religious influences on journalists’ identities, journalists’ views of development journalism, epistemic issues, as well as the relationship between journalism and democracy. Further, the book provides a history of the evolution of the Worlds of Journalism Study, as well as the challenges of conducting such comparative work across a wide range of contexts. A critical review by renowned comparative studies scholar Jay Blumler offers food for thought for future endeavours. This unprecedented collaborative effort will be essential reading for scholars and students of journalism who are interested in comparative approaches to journalism studies and who want to explore the wide variety of journalism cultures that exist around the globe. It was originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

Drawing upon a range of theoretical perspectives, including cultural studies, postcolonial theory, critical race studies, political economy and sociology, Journalism, Culture and Society examines journalism as a democratic necessity that often fails to live up to its promise. This text takes a step back from prevailing idealistic approaches in which theory is often seen as a threat rather than a service to the better understanding of practice, and mainstream journalism in western democracies is seen as unproblematic. Instead, using international examples, the authors provide a critique for those who seek to improve journalistic practice, whilst not losing sight of the profound practical dilemmas that journalists around the world experience in their working lives – from the resources available to them, to the institutions and political contexts in which they work. Readers are encouraged to consider why journalists choose (or are expected to choose) particular subjects or tropes in their work, and the implications of these choices. Journalism, Culture and Society is a valuable resource for students, academics, and practitioners in the areas of media, journalism and communication.

Communication, Culture, and Human Rights in Africa provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary analysis of the interface between human rights and civil society, the media, gender, education, religion, health communication, and political processes, weaving theory, history, policy, and case analyses into a holistic intellectual and cultural critique while offering practical solutions.

This book contributes to a broadened theorisation of journalism by exploring the intricacies of African journalism and its connections with the material realities that underpin the profession on the continent. It pulls together theoretically driven studies that collectively deploy a wide range of evidence to shed some light on newsmaking cultures in Africa – the everyday routines, defining epistemologies, as well as ethical dilemmas. The volume digs beneath the standardised and universalised veneer of professionalism to unpack routine practices and normative trends shaped by local factors, including the structural conditions of deprivation, entrenched political instability (and interference), pervasive neo-patrimonial governance systems, and the influences of technological developments. These varied and complex circumstances are shown to profoundly shape the foundations of journalism in Africa, resulting in routine practices that are both normatively distinct and equally in tune with (imported) Western journalistic cultures. The book thus broadly points to the dialectical nature of news production and the inconsistent and contradictory relationships that characterise news production cultures in Africa.

This book offers a fresh and accessible introduction to the relationship between media power and cultural production. By marshalling a range of theoretical perspectives from political economy and cultural studies, The Media and Cultural Production invites the reader to analyze the relationship between the making of meaning, political, economic and social power and the machinery of cultural production - the media. The book: critically examines the notion of the `cultural industries'; examines the regulatory framework in which the cultural industries operate; looks at the impact of globalization on cultural production; explores the way in which meaning is both produced and contested. The Media and

What is news? Why does news turn out like it does? What factors influence the creation, production, and dissemination of news? Cultural Meanings of News takes on these deceptively simple questions through an essential collection of seminal and contemporary studies by leaders in the fields of mass communication and media studies. Similar in format and purpose to editor Dan Berkowitz's award-winning Social Meanings of News, this new volume represents a conceptual update, a continuation of the discourse about the nature of news and how it comes to be, moving ideas ahead from the earlier tradition of sociological approaches to the more pervasive cultural perspectives that inform understandings about news. Cultural Meanings of News provides a carefully selected set of readings, organized into thematic areas that each probe a dimension of the literature: from sociological roots to cultural perspectives; news as narrative and cultural text; newswork as cultural ritual; news as cultural myth; news and its interpretive communities; news as a source and reflection of collective memory; toward the future of news research. This text-reader provides students and scholars with first-hand exposure to cultural approaches to the study of news, while also providing an organizing framework for understanding the commonalties and differences between threads in the research. The goals are to engage readers through guided immersion in the material.

This edition of the Gender and Media Diversity Journal (GMDJ) focuses on freedom of expression. The theme is mainly informed by the 2011 Windhoek +20 celebrations of the Windhoek Declaration on Promoting Independent and Pluralistic Media, the recent debates on access to information and how freedom of expression is understood in today's society. The use of ICTs in order to enjoy freedom of expression is also tackled in this issue.