Suchergebnisse

Wie verändert sich Journalismus in autoritären Regimen angesichts technischer, wirtschaftlicher und politischer Entwicklungen? Inwieweit können Medienakteure Wandel anstoßen? Mit welchen Mitteln versucht das Regime, steuernd einzugreifen? Judith Pies beantwortet diese Fragen anhand einer detaillierten Beobachtung des Journalismus in Jordanien. Sie beschreibt die Entwicklung professioneller Normen von 1989 bis 2007, analysiert die dahinter stehenden Akteure und bewertet ihre Relevanz für die journalistische Arbeit. Die so entstandene Pionierarbeit ist für Wissenschaftler_innen und Praktiker_innen, die sich mit dem Nahen Osten oder mit Medienentwicklungen befassen, gleichermaßen aufschlussreich.

Wie verändert sich Journalismus in autoritären Regimen angesichts technischer, wirtschaftlicher und politischer Entwicklungen? Inwieweit können Medienakteure Wandel anstoßen? Mit welchen Mitteln versucht das Regime, steuernd einzugreifen?Judith Pies beantwortet diese Fragen anhand einer detaillierten Beobachtung des Journalismus in Jordanien. Sie beschreibt die Entwicklung professioneller Normen von 1989 bis 2007, analysiert die dahinter stehenden Akteure und bewertet ihre Relevanz für die journalistische Arbeit. Die so entstandene Pionierarbeit ist für Wissenschaftler_innen und Praktiker_innen, die sich mit dem Nahen Osten oder mit Medienentwicklungen befassen, gleichermaßen aufschlussreich.

Holding the news media accountable has traditionally been a task of the state in Jordan. Media laws and regulations are numerous and do not leave too much space for self-regulatory practices on a national basis. The Jordan Press Association (JPA) is the core of so-called established media accountability institutions. It conducted a law-like code of ethics in 2003 and runs ombuds committees (currently three) dealing with mishaps of the media to prevent journalists from legal liability. Though being a professional body, many journalists perceive the JPA as an extended arm of the government. Until 2010 the association was not prepared to deal with private broadcasting and online journalists in the same way as it does with press and state owned media journalists. Most media outlets in Jordan are characterised by a lack of accountability awareness and practices especially when it comes to actor and production transparency. Only recently have some news organisations (mainly net-native) become aware of their duty to be accountable towards their audiences. New comers to the field of online news, in particular, have experimented with citizens' involvement and have established a high level of responsiveness in their newsrooms. Online versions of the traditional news media have not yet caught up with this development but will be most probably forced to do so for economic reasons. Apart from economic strategies to better involve audiences, another driving force for media accountability practices in Jordan is the lack of media legitimacy mainly rooted in distrusting the media's independence from the state. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) point towards contempt of press freedom (e.g. Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists), lack of citizen concerned topics (e.g. AmmanNet, 7iber.com) and professional behaviour (e.g. Eye on the Media), or try to deepen the knowledge about the functioning of media (e.g.sahafi.jo). Blogs and social media play only a minor role because media criticism mainly gets louder when wellharboured taboos are tackled. Yet, blogs and social media might become the place to initiate discussion or to negotiate professional rules in the future of a fast changing media field.

Media Accountability in Syria is more a question of re-defining the role of media in society than working on transparency practices or establishing self-regulation. This is due to strong state control and the mobilisation role mass media has been playing in Syria for decades. Before opening its media market for private publications in 2001 Syrian media was controlled either by the state or the ruling Baath party. Media accountability institutions like press councils or ombudspersons were simply not necessary in this concept of media and therefore do not exist. The only professional organisation, the Syrian Journalists Syndicate, did not act as a representative of independent journalists but as a representative of the regime. Additionally, as all journalists and media outlets had to work for more or less the same purpose, norms for guiding individual or organisational decisions – such as a code of ethics – were superfluous. Although these conditions still persist in major parts of the media field, news websites In addition, news websites have added new topics to the traditional news agenda by taking the audience into account, and thus have contributed to holding the media accountable for aspects the old media does not cover. Thus, at least in some cases, media has played the role of being a watchdog over political decisions, which role media has never previously adopted. have particularly contributed to a shift in society's perception of the role of media by paving the way for media accountability practices in the field of responsiveness. Even though instruments for responsiveness might be part of an economic strategy of news websites to enter and survive the news media field, news websites have introduced an audience oriented journalism approach by providing collaborative story writing or possibilities for the audience to comment on news. This is a fundamental change in role perception as mobilising media was merely meant to serve the Baath elite and its ideas. Thus, the audience as a neglected actor of accountability seems to have entered the field. Yet, media accountability as a strategy to become independent from the regime is not thinkable at the moment. Other than one non-governmental organization (NGO), neither institutions nor individuals point systematically to press freedom violations or occurrences hindering independent media. Discussions have not taken place either on issues such as the establishment of an independent press council or ombudspersons. At the moment, the state still restricts the development of a diverse field of media accountability, but is slightly losing control.

Fast die halbe Weltbevölkerung nutzt Soziale Medien; privat und geschäftlich werden sie immer wichtiger. Damit Menschen in der Social-Media-Welt gezielt handeln können, sind Kompetenzen nötig. Diese sind im Kontext allgemeiner kommunikativer Herausforderungen zu sehen: die Erfolgswährung Aufmerksamkeit, die zu Selbstinszenierung verführt; die Angst, etwas zu verpassen, die vielfach süchtig macht; die Fülle an Fotos, die einzelne Bildwerte reduziert. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt, wie Soziale Medien - in Balance zwischen Risikovermeidung und Potentialentfaltung - bewusst und wirksam zu nutzen sind. Der Beitrag leitet so eine effiziente, wertschätzende, also "social-clever-kompetente" Kommunikation für alle an.

Lebanon's media has been envied for its press freedom and high quality by many Arabs from the region for decades. After 15 years of civil war the media had quickly started to flourish again. Yet, internal and external observers have been concerned about the close links between the media and political and religious groups that have led to highly politicized journalism. There is no professional organisation that could unify journalists from the various fractions and set in force binding rules like a code of ethics. A media council does not exist, journalists unions are not involved in media accountability practices and a state's ombudsman has never been instituted. Yet, internal accountability practices are relatively well developed. As political affiliation of media outlets is openly handled (e.g. staff is mainly recruited from each media's particular political group, party emblems are published prominently, mission statements and ownership information are partly available), Lebanese normally know how to interpret the news. Accountability practices that were already in evidence in offline media have been adopted by the majority of websites, such as by-lines, precise references in stories and letters-to-the-editor. Internet specific practices have only been partly adopted. While allowing comments on each article is available on half of the analysed websites, practices strongly integrating the audience in production processes like collaborative story writing can only be found on one TV website. Pure Internet practices like media accountability (MA) Facebook groups or watchblogs do not exist in Lebanon and if users of Facebook and Twitter or bloggers do appear, they seem to follow the same sectarian lines as Lebanon's society and media audiences. The only Internet practice solely dedicated to watching the entire media field and its independence is the relatively new website of SKeyes. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) play the most important role in initiating discussion about media accountability and in building MA capacities by focusing on media literacy. Here again, the Internet is not a pre-requisite but a tool for supporting or easing their activities.

The Internet is both a challenge and an opportunity for media accountability. Newsrooms and citizens are adapting existing practices and developing new ones on news websites, weblogs and social media. This report offers the first comparative study on how these practices are being developed and perceived in thirteen countries in Europe (Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, United Kingdom), the Arab world (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia) and North America (USA). Through the analysis of data on the media systems and in-depth interviews with journalists, experts and activists, the study maps the initiatives performed by media organizations and explores media criticism projects promoted from outside the newsrooms. The concept of journalistic fields proposed by Bourdieu provides the contextual analysis of the diversity of countries. It articulates the relationships between the media and the political and economic fields to explain how they shape media accountability developments on the Internet. The role of media self-regulation institutions and the active user culture enabled by the Internet are other actors considered in the description of the tensions surrounding media accountability in the journalistic fields. In this context, the study suggests that media accountability online is being enacted in practices that vary from country to country depending on the perceptions of journalists and newsrooms about it, the interplay of accountability aims with economic and political goals of the media, and their positions in the dynamic struggle for credibility within the journalistic field. Few media accountability practices are widespread in the countries analyzed, and the actual developments are very uneven in terms of motivations, technical tools and workflows. The analysis shows that those countries where there are more active online practices (USA, UK) are some of those with lower trust of the public in the media. In other contexts, such as the Arab countries, the efforts towards media accountability are mainly led by those citizens and journalists that also struggle to democratize society. The challenges in Europe seem to be maintaining the autonomy of the journalistic field, and while practices within and outside media organizations are scarce and often not systematic and institutionalized, the study has found cases that highlight how the Internet can be an effective tool to promote ethical journalism by fostering transparency and responsiveness.