Contemporary Brics Journalism

Contemporary BRICS Journalism: Non-Western Media in Transition is the first comparative study of professional journalists working in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The book presents a range of insider perspectives, offering a valuable insight into the nature of journalism in these influential economies. Contributors to this volume have conducted in-depth interviews with more than 700 journalists, from mainstream and online media, between 2012 and 2015. They present and analyse their findings here, revealing how BRICS journalism is envisioned, experienced, and practised in the twenty-first century. Compelling evidence in the form of journalists’ narratives reveals the impact of digital culture on modern reporting and the evolving dynamic between new media technology and traditional journalistic practice. Insightful comparisons are made between BRICS countries, highlighting the similarities and differences between them. Topics covered include; professionalism, ethics and ideals, community journalism, technological developments in the newsroom and the reporting of protest movements. This book’s ambitious analysis of journalistic landscapes across these non-Western nations will significantly broaden the scope of study and research in the field of journalism for students and teachers of communication, journalism, and media studies.

Mapping BRICS Media is the first comprehensive and comparative study of the emerging media landscape in the world’s most dynamic and fastest growing markets. This pioneering collection focuses on one of the key topics in contemporary international relations - the emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) - a grouping that includes some of the world’s largest populations and fastest growing economies. The volume brings together leading scholars, mainly from the BRICS nations, to examine how the emergence of the BRICS media will impact on global media and communication. Contextualizing the rise of the BRICS nations within the broader shifts in global power relations, the chapters investigate the unprecedented growth of the BRICS media within a ‘multi-polar’ world, evaluating the media landscapes in the individual BRICS countries, their histories, and their journalism practices, as well as analyzing emerging inter-BRICS media relationships. Accessible and comprehensive, the book provides a critical guide to the complex debates about the impact of the ‘rise of the rest’ on the media globe and how far this poses a challenge to the Western-dominated world order and its media systems.

Bringing together distinguished scholars from BRICS nations and those with deep interest and knowledge of these emerging powers, this collection makes a significant intervention in the ongoing debates about comparative communication research and thus contributes to the further internationalization of media and communication studies. The unprecedented expansion of online media in the world’s major non-Western nations, exemplified by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is transforming global communication. Despite their differences and divergences on key policy issues, what unites these five nations, representing more than 20 per cent of the global GDP, is the scale and scope of change in their communication environment, triggered by a multilingual, mobile Internet. The resulting networked and digitized communication ecology has reoriented international media and communication flows. Evaluating the implications of globalization of BRICS media on the reshaping of international communication, the book frames this within the contexts of theory-building on media and communication systems, soft power discourses and communication practices, including in cyberspace. Adopting a critical approach in analysing BRICS communication strategies and their effectiveness, the book assesses the role of the BRICS nations in reframing a global communication order for a ‘post-American world’. This critical volume of essays is ideal for students, teachers and researchers in journalism, media, politics, sociology, international relations, area studies and cultural studies.

International news has long been studied and understood as produced by outsiders – foreign correspondents working in exotic, international locales. This book challenges this established view by putting the spotlight on the insiders working in their own countries producing news for international audiences. Western male foreign correspondents who report from areas affected by crises and conflicts for an ‘audience back home’ have long stood in as visible metaphors of international news production. But the understanding of who produces international news is starting to shift as scholars come to take into account the often-invisible role played by locally based, non-Western news-workers who have always been part and parcel of international news production. The roles and responsibilities of these professional, specialised locals within the global flow of news have only increased as falling news industry revenues have meant reductions in non-local staff in foreign news bureaus. Available research shows that the involvement of local journalists and fixers, as well as NGOs, as sources of news and information in international news production is marked by economic, socio-cultural and practice-related tensions. To shed light on these growing yet relatively less investigated changes happening in international news-making, this book brings together the latest of studies conducted on this form of journalistic labour around the world. This book will contribute to both the breadth and depth of our future understanding of local news-work that benefits distant audiences, and also help cement the place of such journalistic work as a vital topic of analysis in its own right. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

This handbook critically analyzes cross‐border news production and “transnational journalism cultures” in the evolving field of cross-border journalism. As the era of the internet hasfurther expanded the border‐transcending production, dissemination andreception of news, and with transnational co‐operations like the European Broadcasting Union and BBC World News demonstrating different kinds of cross‐border journalism, the handbook considers the field with a range of international contributions. It explores cross-border journalism from conceptual and empirical angles and includes perspectives on the the systemic contexts of cross‐border journalism, its structures and routines, changes in production processes, and the shifting roles of actors in digital environments. It examines cross-border journalism across regions and concludes with discussions on the future of cross-border journalism, including the influence of automation, algorithmisation, virtual reality and AI.

This book examines how representations of African in the Anglophone West have changed in the post-imperial age. The period since the Second World War has seen profound changes in sub-Saharan Africa, notably because of decolonization, the creation of independent nation-states and the transformation of the relationships with the West. Using a range of case studies from news media, maps, popular culture, film and TV the contributions assess how narrative and counter-narratives have developed and been received by their audiences in light of these changes. Examining the overlapping areas between media representations and historical events, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of African Studies and Media and Cultural Studies.

The Global Handbook of Media Accountability brings together leading scholars to de-Westernize the academic debate on media accountability and discuss different models of media self-regulation and newsroom transparency around the globe. With examination of the status quo of media accountability in 43 countries worldwide, it offers a theoretically informed comparative analysis of accountability regimes of different varieties. As such, it constitutes the first interdisciplinary academic framework comparing structures of media accountability across all continents and creates an invaluable basis for further research and policymaking. It will therefore appeal to scholars and students of media studies and journalism, mass communication, sociology, and political science, as well as policymakers and practitioners.

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.